SL400 running Ubuntu / Linux

For anyone else running ubuntu on the SLseries, especially the SL400 which I have, here's your thread.

I rather foolishly ordered a new design hoping everything would work. Well, close, but there were a few issues getting things to work.

Here's what I've done:

Booted live Ubuntu 8.10 CD. Used the gparted program to resize the windows main partition down to 20G or so, just big enough to hold windows for now. I'll probably delete some of the crapware later, and resize again, as I only need windows for support and games. Created two new ext3 partitions, so I could install both 8.04 ubuntu and 8.10 for testing. Installation of the two ubuntu distros went without a hitch as well.

Things that didn't work but now do (after a bit of research and work): video playback, wireless nic.

The video drivers that ship with 8.04 (version 2.2.0 or so) and 8.10 (version 2.4.1) crash and burn when you try to play back video, like with mplayer. I found the melchiorre patched 2.4.0 driver which does NOT crash when you play video.

However, there is no xv support in them, so with mplayer you can choose either -vo sdl or -vo x11. Sdl will allow you to scale the picture by resizing the video window, but the scaling looks pretty bad. X11 requires you to use -vf scale=1280:720 (for 16/9 full screen) since it won't software scale, at least I haven't figured out how to have it scale in real time while up and running. I wrote myself a couple aliases that allow you to simply play videos without having to type a big string of numbers each time.

Playback speed is pretty good with X11, but I can tell it's taxing my CPU way more than xv would. I'm sure the xv enabled intel drivers will show up soon and this will seem like a distant memory.

For the network card, you need to madwifi drivers, for either 8.04 or 8.10. I used this posting for making it work on my 64 bit ubuntu install:

update: Got suspend to work...

‎10-01-200810:14 PM

The machine does suspend and come back now. But there's a trick. When it comes back up it's in a console of some kind. Pressing ALT-CTL-F7 brings back up X windows. woohoo! Now to figure out what to do to fix the volume keys...

Re: SL400 running Ubuntu / Linux

‎10-09-200811:10 AM

I have the SL400 but with the nVidia GFX. after installing the stock linux nVidia driver in the restricted drivers options in ubuntu everything works. For the WiFi I did a similar thing like sxooter did. If you get the volume keys working, please PM me.

Occasionally Wifi stops working after suspend/resume, but I guess the madwifi drivers will keep getting better.

other hardware that seems unsupported is the Hard Disk shock prtection and the Ricoh memory stick reader. I heard reports that it works with SD-cards, but not with Memory sticks. There is a driver effort going on here, but the project seems quiet...

Re: SL400 running Ubuntu / Linux

‎10-09-200812:46 PM

I've had my wifi card just stop working a couple times, and couldn't get it working again (/etc/init.d/network restart didn't fix it). I'm guessing the card firmware is crashing. Note that I run a lot of torrents all the time, so it's quite possible other folks with a lower network utilization will not have as much of a problem as I do.

There are some drivers for detecting the shock inputs, I've seen a demo on youtube for it, but I don't think any distro supports them right outta the box or with packages.

The SD slot definitely works for plain old SD cards. Don't have any memory sticks, SDHD or SD micro cards to test with.

My boss has a wide screen tv with HDMI input I'm gonna try the HDMI connector on later and I'll report back on that when I try it.

Re: SL400 running Ubuntu / Linux

‎10-11-200807:08 PM

can you please list your actual system specs, such as network adapter, nic chipset, sound card, etc etc, as your post is helpless for others interested in konwing what hardware you've gotten working in ubuntu.

Re: SL400 running Ubuntu / Linux

Here is the relevant part of my .config:CONFIG_IWLWIFI=mCONFIG_IWLWIFI_LEDS=yCONFIG_IWLWIFI_RFKILL=y

For some reason, I also had to manually enable Intel HD sound:CONFIG_SND_HDA_INTEL=m# CONFIG_SND_HDA_HWDEP is not setCONFIG_SND_HDA_CODEC_REALTEK=yCONFIG_SND_HDA_CODEC_ANALOG=yCONFIG_SND_HDA_CODEC_SIGMATEL=yCONFIG_SND_HDA_CODEC_VIA=yCONFIG_SND_HDA_CODEC_ATIHDMI=yCONFIG_SND_HDA_CODEC_CONEXANT=yCONFIG_SND_HDA_CODEC_CMEDIA=yCONFIG_SND_HDA_CODEC_SI3054=yCONFIG_SND_HDA_GENERIC=y

I made kernel .deb packages and posted them athttp://www.neuropunks.org/ubuntu-lenovo-sl400-wifiif you want to skip compiling yourself - just make sure you have SL400 with Intel - not Atheros wifi. I also posted my .config file there if you want to use it as source for the compile.Obviously, now you are running not supported kernel, so keep that in mind with updates, etc.